


Tell Me, Dean,

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Hannibal (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, M/M, Non-Binary Sam Winchester, THIS /EXACTLY/ WHAT YOU THINK IT IS. IT IS /EXACTLY/ WHAT YOU THINK IT IS., i wrote this while listening to barbie music so, lots of horrible hannibal language :) meanwhile dean says shit like 'gank', references to french mistake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28926144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: In a lull between cases, Sam suggests Dean go to therapy. Dean's therapist is Hannibal Lecter.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 137
Kudos: 445





	Tell Me, Dean,

**Author's Note:**

> i use they pronouns for sam bc why not. anyway, enjoy.

“Fuck,” Dean hisses under his breath, grabbing Sam by the arm and forcing them both out of the room.

“What?” Sam asks, shaking that disgustingly shaggy hair out of their irritated eyes.

“Real FBI,” Dean mutters, striding back down the hallway with his head down. “Come on.”

Sam hurries after him, soon surpassing him with his gargantuan stride. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I saw one of them - broad Black guy, overcoat - pull out his badge.”

“So much for this angle.”

“We can still try EMF.”

Sam shook their head. “Nothing. No readings; no ghost.”

Dean swears. “It has to be a demon.”

Sam stops Dean at the end of the corridor. “You really think so?”

Dean blinks at him. “Second brutalised bloody corpse found tortured and stabbed to death within the past month. Uh, yeah.”

“You know it could just be,” Sam swallows, “A… you know, a human. They’re saying it’s the Chesapeake Ripper, and the Ripper’s activities, I mean - they track with typical serial murder behavior. Same MO, same sort of,” their voice sours on the word, “Surgical skill. And he strikes in soundings of three, it’s - it’s a longtime pattern, and this is right on schedule. Demons are usually more… you know. They’re drifters. They don’t usually find one place to camp out and kill.” They wince. “And they probably don’t remove livers with perfect precision.”

“But serial killers do.”

Sam nods.

Dean whistles lowly. “We got a real sicko on our hands.”

“It’s not really on our hands.” Sam jerks their head in the direction of the crime scene. “Like you said, FBI--holy--is that _Jack Crawford?_ ”

“Who?”

Sam’s eyes go wide, caught on the figure of an agent exiting the crime scene and replacing his hat on his head. “THEE Jack Crawford, Dean! Head of the Behavioural Science Unit? Literally one of the best agents the FBI’s ever had?” Sam quiets their voice a little. “Dude, these guys put us on one of their watchlists every _month_ , and you don’t even know who’s in charge of them?”

Dean snorts. “Okay, chill _out_ , Brandon Wheegar. I’m too busy worrying about actually important things, like--

“Like the air-date of the next season of Dr. Sexy?” Sam pins him with a look. “I saw your internet history.”

Dean resists the urge to throttle his sibling and cause a sequel crime scene right then and there. “Like whether that agent,” he says without losing his cool, and indicates a black-haired woman in a red leather jacket, “Is free tonight.”

Sam rolls their eyes and smacks Dean lightly on the shoulder. “Come on. Listen, if Crawford’s here, he’s got this covered. Let’s _go_. Dean?”

Dean, Sam notices, is now watching the smaller man trailing Crawford, some scruffy white guy in a plaid button down and khakis. “Who’s that,” he asks, angling his chin toward him and not-too-subtly casting his eyes down to the guy’s rather unimpressive rear.

“Not your latest date, so stop ogling.”

“I wasn’t _ogling_.”

“Just gawking, right.” Sam smirks, then deftly cuts Dean off with their trademark annoying younger sibling composure right before Dean can reply. “We gotta go before they ask us what we’re doing here. I doubt a fake badge is gonna fool Jack Crawford.”

Dean snorts. “You really think law enforcement is _smart_?”

Sam shrugs. “Touché.”

“Man, I fucking hate Baltimore,” Dean grouses, dropping his ass--loaded with a heavy-as-a-mountain level of repressed manly man rage--onto a squeaky motel bed whose overtaxed springs really doesn’t deserve this onslaught. Baby has a flat tire because _of course_ she does, when does _anything_ go their way, and they’re stuck in a dingy half-lit Maryland motel for the next _hour and a half_ because the auto shop workers, _dumbasses_ , won’t let Dean peer over their shoulders making useless commentary on how pretty Baby is as they try to do their job. The head guy let him stick around right up until he said “nice ass” to a mechanic, then essentially manhandled him off the premises with a monkey wrench in one hand, totally not one of the most embarrassing experiences of Dean’s life (and totally not sexy at all). “Name, like, _one_ good thing that’s ever happened in Baltimore,” Dean groans. 

“This sandwich,” Sam mutters with their mouth full.

“Dude,” says Dean, looking at the fact that the sandwich appears to have no fewer than four different types of vegetables. He closes his eyes against the terrible vision of green. “Gross.”

“You’re just pissed you couldn’t bone Agent Katz.”

Dean cracks open one eye. “Who now?”

Sam rolls their eyes. “Agent Katz, the woman you had your eye on. I circled back and touched base with a couple agents, claiming local PD. Got told to,” Sam draws airquotes in the air, “Skedaddle.”

Dean apparently had forgotten the whole interaction had happened, but he does raise his eyebrows at the FBI’s eloquent use of Skedaddle. “Huh.”

“What, still thinking of that guy in the khaki pants?”

“Dude, he was wearing mismatched socks. _Mismatched socks_.” Dean shakes his head in disgust. “Who _does_ that?”

“You’re wearing mismatched socks right now.”

Dean looks down and swears violently. Sam chuckles, then turns back to their laptop screen, the smile fading off their face. It’s replaced with a familiar pensive expression, one often followed up by the words “So get this” or “Lore.” Sam furrows one brow, flicks a bit of hair out of their eyes, scrolls further down on whatever super-engrossing google tab they’re currently perusing.

Dean shifts on the bed. “Hey.”

Sam doesn’t respond. Dean repeats himself, snapping a finger. “Hey!”

Sam looks over at him, blinks. “Dean,” they ask carefully, “Have you ever considered going to therapy?”

One and a half hours until the car is repaired becomes “three or maybe four hours until the car is repaired” since the shop only has Michelin in stock, and Dean insists he can NOT drive a vehicle with goddamn _mixed tires_ , what is he, some kind of prehistoric caveman? Some neanderthal bitch? Should he pour in tomato sauce instead of gasoline while he’s at it, asshole? The guy on the other end didn’t seem to take that too well, but whatever, his problem. 

Sam is still thoughtful. “You know, Dean,” they say, “You have been having a pretty rough go of it lately.”

“Uh, yeah?” Dean gestures widely. “What else is new? And it’s not like you’re exactly a happy camper either.”

Sam ignores the final jab. “I mean. You’re always angry at someone. Maybe you’re angry at you. And this can help.”

“What?” Dean tries to process, immediately defaulting to the very same back-burner default anger Sam is calling out. He stands. “I’m not ANGRY!”

Sam blinks. “Whooo. Sure.”

Dean unclenches his fists. “Not angry,” he repeats. “I’m not angry.”

“Right.” Sam purses their lips for a moment. “Dean. One session.”

“Bite me.”

“Dean, if you go, I’ll go.”

“Dude, I am not getting therap--therapized? I am _not_ getting therapized next to my kid brother.”

“Great, so you agree to go.” Sam closes their laptop with a snap.

“No, fuck, what?”

Sam spreads their arms. “How’s this. You attend one session. If you hate it, I pay you fifty bucks. If you like it, you pay me, say, twenty.”

“That’s not a fair trade.”

“No,” Sam says easily, “But you don’t have fifty bucks to spare since you blow it all on pies and booze.”

Dean, to his credit, eloquently expresses ‘Fair enough’ with just his face, and agrees to the wager. “ _When_ I hate it, you pay me fifty bucks,” he corrects. The number gives him pause. He and Sam don’t exactly have steady income. It’s generous, more generous than Sam should be. He sighs. “This is really important to you, huh?”

“I think it would be good. For both of us.” Sam looks down for a moment, making their gargantuan flannel-clad body look small. “There’s stuff. I mean, you know.” They push a hand through their shaggy hair. “There’s stuff.”

Dean groans. “Fine. Rock paper scissors for it. I win, we keep our asses here and wait on Baby. You win, we go get our brains shrunk.”

“Dean, it’s not psychoanalysis.”

“Yeah, well, good, cuz we’re not psychos.”

“Dean, that’s not--that’s not what psychoanalysis is.”

“Uh, _yeah_. Analysis of psychoes.”

“No, that’s--” Sam gives up. “Fffffphew. Okay.”

They rock-paper-scissors. Sam wins.

  
  


Dean’s therapist looks like an evil fish.

That’s his first thought. His second thought is that the suit the man’s wearing is maybe the worst thing he’s ever seen. It’s so bad it’s almost respectable, and Dean suppresses a low whistle when it catches the light in the waiting room doorway. Shit’s teal and shit’s _audacious_. He looks again briefly at the name he’d scratched on a piece of paper, triple-checking to make sure he read it right. It definitely says _Hannibal Lecter, M.D_.

His name is literally Hannibal. Man, this poor poor motherfucker. This _rich_ poor poor motherfucker.

“Hannibal,” Dean says, suppressing at least seven cannibal-related wisecracks at his disposal and offering his hand. “Nice to uh, meet ya.” (It’s a hair’s breadth away from ‘nice to eat ya,’ cuz Dean thinks he’s hilarious.)

The man’s eyes darken with sudden anger. “Dr. Lecter, please,” he says in a clipped tone. His voice is accented, which maybe explains the strange name, but Dean is cripplingly American and can’t even hazard a guess as to where the man is from. Wherever the people look like they’re made of dried out fish-skin stretched too tightly over almost-human cheekbones. 

“Uh-huh,” Dean says. “Doctor Lecter.”

Lecter smiles tightly and ushers Dean into his office, indicating one of the two chairs for Dean to sit on. He considers being an ass and taking the other one, but something tells him being rude to this particular person again might not go over very well. The room--office?--makes him immediately uncomfortable; it’s two stories high, ornate, unexpectedly large, unexpectedly dim, and, like, _decorated_ . There’s things in frames. There’s a whole-ass fireplace. A fucking fireplace. Not to mention that Lecter is in a _three piece shiny turquoise suit_ and Dean’s in muddy jeans and a flannel. Dean hopes to any god that might exist that Sam’s having an even worse time than he is.

He sits on the chair. Lecter settles across from him. They go over basics; Dean rattles off his fake name (Christopher Isaak) and some other fun shit he’d made up for the occasion, like how he’d recently left his girlfriend--a woman named Brisa Laeden--and the reason he’d decided to come here for an hour (“My baby brother said it would help with my ‘anger’ and I lost a game of rockp--uh… chess. Okay, fine, it was rock paper scissors.” He expected the Doc to be derisive like so many rich fuckers are, but the man only looks faintly amused, evidently pleased that Dean hadn’t lied.)

“Who do you think you are angry at?” Lecter asks, and Dean stops short. The doctor’s gaze is piercing scrutiny, and it goes up and up in power the longer Dean can’t form a reply. God, he hates Sammy so much. He can _feel_ his ass start sweating.

“Uh,” he says eloquently. Great. Killin' it so far. He’d rather be in hand to hand combat with a werewolf. He’d rather be in hand to hand combat with a werewolf while blindfolded with one hand tied behind his back. “I don’t know.”

He lapses into silence again, feeling the time tick away until he’s allowed to leave.

“This is your hour,” Lecter tells him, following his as they scan around for a clock. “We can talk about as much or as little as you would like. I have no aversion to your silence if you feel it serves you; however, it appears to make you uncomfortable. Would you prefer an alternate line of questioning?”

“No!” Dean bristles, then immediately smoothes his shoulders down. “I don’t--I don’t talk to people a lot. All I do is gank shit. It’s weird to be asked questions.”

Lecter nods. 

“I don’t want you tryin’ to get into my head.”

“I’m not,” Lecter replies evenly. 

“Or _analyzing_ me.”

“When you speak, I will listen closely to your words and impartially assess them and offer what advice I see fit. I would not analyse you, only your perception of yourself.”

Somehow that doesn’t make Dean feel astronomically better. He says so.

“I appreciate your honesty, Christopher.”

“Fuck it,” Dean sighs. “My name’s Dean.”

“I appreciate your honesty, Dean.”

Dean scoffs. “Really?”

“Yes,” Lecter says simply.

“Okay.” Dean shifts his weight. “Let’s do this, huh? Okay. I’m a hunter. I hunt things.”

“I see. I can relate.”

Dean eyes Lecter skeptically; he can’t imagine this bougie man anywhere near a set of woods or a poorly-lit back road like the ones he and Sam travel down. “Really?”

“What I do in this office is a form of problem-solving. Problem-solving is hunting. It's a savage pleasure and we're born to it.”

The sentence is just really point-blank weird, but it also bats uncomfortably against Dean’s, well, entire life experience. “Okay,” he says. “Um, my parents are dead. I saw my father die.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

Dean clams up. “No.”

“Tell me about your father.”

Dean shrugs. “He’s--he was a hero. Fought his whole life.”

“Do you think well of him?”

Dean hisses breath out through clenched teeth. “Yeah.”

“Did he mistreat you?”

“No.”

Lecter is silent.

Dean clenches his teeth still further and gets out, “Yeah.”

Lecter nods. “Have you heard the term Imago, Dean?”

Dean shakes his head. “Nah.”

“It’s a term from the dead religion of psychoanalysis--”

“Dead religion?” Dean cuts in. “Oh boy. Sam is gonna be pissed.”

Lecter clearly did not take the interruption well. One of Dean’s danger senses goes off, loud and wild, at the slight shift in Lecter’s posture. If Dean were in a field, in a copse of trees, he would draw his weapon and run.

He dismisses the urge. Lecter isn’t dangerous. A little bit of rudeness ain’t a murderable offence.

“An imago, in this context, is an idealised image of a loved one, frequently a parent, buried in the unconscious from infancy. The word comes from the wax portrait busts of their ancestors the ancient Romans carried in funeral processions.”

“And you think I’ve got, what, an imago-thingie?”

“An idealised perception of your father. Yes.”

“Well, uh. With all due respect, so what?”

Lecter raises his eyebrows. “It’s a facet of personality to be aware of. An imago may be a helpful comfort to those in distress. It can also become uncomfortable, stifling, like an insect chrysalis lodged in the throat.”

“Uh. Cool.” Dean wonders where the fuck this guy gets his metaphors.

“You struggle with your father figure.”

“I mean. He’s dead.”

“Do you know the definition of the word Gretchenfrage?”

Dean resists the urge to roll his eyes. “No.”

“It’s a German word, from Goethe’s _Faust_. A portmanteau of the name Gretchen and the German word for question. Generally, it can refer to any query that cuts right to the core of an issue, but specifically it relates to the question of whether or not one has faith. Do you believe in God, Dean?”

Dean laughs sharply. “It’s, uh. It’s a complicated question.” He hates how prickly-weird this man makes him feel. “You?”

“I do not pray. But I do believe in God.” Dr. Lecter pauses, laces his fingers together in his lap. “My God is not compassionate. Is yours?”

Half of Dean wants to say “Dude, what the fuck?” and the other half of him wants to say “Never has been.”

Instead, he combines those two phrases into something incredibly unique intelligent: “Never has fuck.”

And then, “That’s not--that’s. Fuck. Yeah, if God’s up there, he’s an asshole.” He gestures widely. “Have you seen the world? That ain’t exactly big news.”

Lecter almost smiles at that. 

“I don’t get it, dude. I mean. What’s the point, the point of any of it, it’s just…” Dean looks down. Lecter waits for him to continue. “If there is a God, who’s to say I wouldn’t hunt him too. He’s inhuman enough.”

“Humanity is a flawed and tarnished concept. A cocoon or shell.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Is ‘humanity’ the goal of all living things?” Lecter asks neutrally. 

Dean snorts as he turns that thought over. “That’d be pretty shit too, wouldn’t it.”

A pause. Lecter leans forward incrementally.

“Faith is a potent force in many humans, Dean. Some might say it burns as bright as the fires that warmed our ancestors as they first struck flame from flint. However, when you think of God, you immediately become riled. The anger at the Divine suggests a grief.”

Dean stills and then shrugs. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Would you like to talk about the roots of this grief?” When Dean is silent, Lecter tries a different track. “Or your anger? Anger directed at God is often anger directed at a fellow man. Perhaps you are angry at someone you do not feel you are able to be angry at, so you return that rage upon yourself.”

Dean doesn’t say anything to that, but his glare could drill (not in the sexy way) a hole through the floor. Lecter crosses his legs.

“Fury directed at higher powers is often parse-able. Would you like to speak of it? Speech gives thoughts freedom, power. Many incantations linked to religion and magic are composed of only words. Words bear witness to the complete spectrum of human emotion. Tell me, Dean, would you like to bear witness to the intensity of which you are capable?”

Dean laughs out laugh, a coarse and bitter noise. “No, Dr. Sexy, I very much would _not_ like to, um,” he jerks his hand, “Bear witness to that.”

It’s a second before he realises his mistake. The only thing his brain ever follows the word ‘Doctor’ is the word ‘Sexy.’ Everything screeches to a halt.

“It’s a show,” he manages. “It’s a goddamn TV show, I didn’t mean--”

Lecter is smiling for real now, smug bastard, and goddammit, _that’s_ what it takes to get this man to _smile_? What is he, a psychopath? Whatever. After that fiasco he might as well drop the bombshell.

“I like dick,” Dean announces.

Yeah. He likes dick. What the fuck is Lecter gonna do? A turquoise satin three-piece suit, a room covered in fucking _hand-drawn art_ , striped curtains, statuary? It’s absolutely repulsive--and completely indicative of the fact that this man is _blatantly_ an aging queer, and even though Dean is a hair’s-breadth away from running screaming out of the entire overwrought badly-lit fucking AESTHETIC of this place, it’s not like anything in here can hurt him. He’s leaving Baltimore in thirty minutes tops. He could easily take Lecter in a fight--the fucker’s like sixty and could be snapped in half like a fishstick--and nobody even knows Dean’s real name. Blabbing that ‘Dean Chris Isaak’ is gay won’t exactly turn up any relevant results. So if there’s any place Dean can say it, it’s here.

“I see,” Lecter says, the unflappable prick. “Does this--I presume you refer to your sexuality--cause internal struggle?”

“What the fuck?” Dean asks. “What the fuck? My sexuality?”

“Shall I define the word for you?”

“No, no, it’s fine. It’s just.” Dean scoffs. “It feels like you called me a--god, this is like that shit Sam was telling me about, that-them ‘pronouns’ and shit, christ, just use a fucking slur or something. _Sexuality._ God.”

“I will not call you a slur.” Lecter’s voice has gone sharp. “That would be unforgivably rude, Dean.”

Dean laughs again.

“Is such treatment what you are used to?”

“No,” Dean snaps. “No, it’s--why the fuck are we talking about this?”

“You mentioned it first,” Lecter replies evenly. And then, with more energy than he had displayed before, “Is there anyone in particular who has been… inconsiderate… of you?”

Dean shakes his head. “Most of my fathers’ friends are dead.”

Lecter relaxes with what seems like disappointment. “Does your family know?”

“I don’t really--I mean, family’s not--I guess I could’ve told Bobby, but. It doesn’t matter much, you know? Not like it comes--pff, okay, it comes sometimes cuz I’m good at what I do but--ahem. It doesn’t come up. Being--” he waves his hand. “It’s women mostly. That I talk about, I mean. Sam… maybe Sam suspects, but it ain’t come up yet. Believe me, I make sure it doesn’t.”

There’s silence. Dean wants to talk. Motherfucker, he knows this isn’t even item TEN on the shitlist of Stuff He Should Probably Work On but it’s probably the least likely to follow him out of the room in any meaningful way. Like, it’s probably the least likely thing to _change_ , which makes it safer to talk about.

Sort of.

Dean can visualise a massive powder keg in his near future.  
“And then there’s Cas,” Dean says, the equivalent of setting a flamethrower to it.

“Cas,” Lecter echoes. A spark of real interest, perhaps.

“I feel like I’m just walkin’ in circles without him sometimes. Like, I just… do things, ya know, but they’re pointed nowhere. I mean, for Sam, obviously. But that’s different. I want to do things. I mean. Not for me or for Sam. Or for the safety of the fucking world, whatever. For Cas. Just for Cas.”

Lecter stays quiet, letting Dean go on.

“Cas…” he thinks deeply about his next words, because Cas deserves that. “He stares at me. All the time. He looks at me like I’m, like I’m _somethin._ Like I’m more than somethin. Like I’m. I dunno.” Dean shrugs. “Worthy.”

“Perhaps you are.”

“But that’s not it either,” Dean says, and he’s pissed that the only way he can manage to articulate it is through the cheesiest fucking metaphors if he reads _poetry_ or some horseshit. “He stares at me sometimes like I’m. Like he’s. I don’t know. Like he’s, like he _wants_ me, like he’s a starving man. And I stare back,” he admits, dropping his head. “I do. At his… face. Eyes, mouth, whatever. He’s got a dumb face, but it’s. It’s.”

The next words come out in a rush. “He’s fuckin’ otherworldly, man, but he likes television and burgers and stupid things like flowers and bees and he’s gorgeous and I want the idiot _around_ , I want to fix his stupid tie and straighten his coat and teach him how to live out there, and--and touch him,” he finishes lamely before picking back up. “He threw me against a wall once and jesus christ, that was a turn-on, like, dude, one-way ticket to bonertown cuz he was one goddamn inch away, and I guess I should mention that he defied his entire, um, religion to be with me, and also I sucked him off once, anyway, is that gay?”

Lecter thinks it over. “Tell me, Dean. Have you ever framed him for murders you committed yourself?”

Dean blinks. “Uh, no?”

“Framing one for murder is a hallmark of a budding romantic relationship.”

Dean’s life is already so goddamn weird he’s not even sure where that sentence fits on the weird-o-meter. “Whoa,” he says. “This ain’t, this isn’t a romantic relationship. I can’t do romantic relationships. Hell, I can’t even do family relationships. Mom, Dad, Sam.” Dean scoffs. “Don’t even get me started on Sam.”

Changing tracks from Cas to Sam is like stepping onto solid ground.

“Is Sam a sibling?”

“Yeah.”

Lecter nods. “I had a younger sister once. An inquisitive but lonely child wholly under my care. To her, I behaved as a father.”

Dean wonders why Lecter is even telling him this. Lecter, as if reading his mind, answers the question with an observant gaze. “You are evidently unpracticed in the art of self-revelation,” he tells him. “Most of this time you have spent talking about other people. Often, with my patients, I engage in a sort of informal trade. Their pasts for mine.” He tilts his head. “Quid pro quo, Dean.”

That is tit-for-tat logic Dean can make sense of. It’s the therapist’s equivalent of beef in exchange for a blow job, big deal. “I was kind of like a parent to my brother, too,” he admits. As he drifts into the past, his accent gets stronger. “Cleaning him up, washin’ his clothes, makin’ sure he ate enough an’ giving him mine when I had to. Dad was out lots of nights, and sometimes even when he was here it was like he wasn’t. All the motels, we never stayed anywhere, poor kid never made any friends. I was the one who tucked him in, nicked him Christmas presents. ’Course, we used to celebrate all the Jewish stuff when Mom was alive, but Sam doesn’t remember, ’n Christmas is easier cuz it’s everywhere, and Sam was always happy to see the lights strung places. He’d keep his face turned upward to that light every time we walked by a rich ol’ decked out house, you know the ones. It’s--I don’t know, man. It was hard.”

“How did that make you feel?”

Dean blows air out from between his lips. “I never thought about it, really. But it was - it wasn’t fair. To me. To either of us. I can’t do the shit a kid needs.”

“And you shouldnt’ve been expected to.”

“There wasn’t another option,” Dean snaps. He cools. Sam. Back to Sam. “Whatever. I don’t parent him anymore. He’s all grown up now, or at least he thinks so.”

“He thinks so,” Lecter echoes.

“Sometimes when I look at him all I see’s that kid who could let anyone hurt ’im.”

“You must allow your brother the same internal complexity you allow yourself. He is not a child any longer.”

Dean shrugs, not quite able to reconcile that. “Sure, yeah.”

“Family can be... an ill-fitting suit. It is a burden,” Lecter says. “Parenthood. A burden your father thrust on you.”

“You make it sound like he was a real shitsack, huh.”

Lecter sidesteps. “Fatherhood is not always a nurturing role. Fathers can be killers.”

Dean snorts. “Don’t I know it.”

“Parents shape us. But a boy's illusions are no basis for a man's life.” 

“Yeah.” Dean’s not really sure what to make of that. “Yeah,” he says again. 

“My sister, Mischa--”

Dean snaps upright. Every nerve bone in his body vibrates like a livewire. “Sorry, who?”

“Mischa,” Lecter repeats with a trace of annoyance.

“Not,” Dean says carefully, “Not, uh, not Collins, by any chance?”

The doctor gives him a perplexed look. “No. Lecter.”

Oh. _Duh._

“Sorry,” grunts Dean as he spazzes a bit. Naturally, he’s thinking of the weirdest few days he’s ever had in his entire life--and considering the, well, _everything_ of his entire life, that’s saying something. But it isn’t every day you’re lightspeed-punted into an alternate universe where your life is a TV show and everyone thinks you’re some makeup-smeared hotstuff celeb from Texas named Jenny or Jensit or something and your best friend Castiel, a building-sized wavelength of light crammed into the body of a Illinois salesman, has been replaced by something infinitely weirder, a kooky high-voiced twitter-acronym-using actor named Misha Collins who gets stabbed to death in an alleyway and whose brain is probably fueled by Drano. Definitely the strangest creature Dean has ever encountered in all his years of hunting, and definitely one of the _most_ events of Dean’s life. He shakes his head to clear it. 

Lecter looks at him coolly. His eyes are fucking inscrutable. Are they brown? Amber? Fucking _maroon_?

“Dean,” Lecter reminds him, “This is your hour. You do not need to apologise as I have not found any of your comportment unforgivably rude. With this remaining time, which is approximately thirty minutes, you may speak of whatever you choose. Your sexuality, your desire for your friend, your father or brother--”

And Dean’s had it. In a split-second it crashes on him that Dr. Lecter is a stranger, that he’s told this man he’s _queer_ , that he’s told this man more of his life story than he’s basically ever told anyone and the knowledge of what he’s said hits like blows, hits worse than blows, and it makes him want to _choke_. There are tears in his eyes. There are tears in his eyes as he stands in front of another human being who is _seeing_ those fucking tears. God dammit. God _fucking dammit._

“I gotta go,” Dean growls, so tense every muscle seems to hold pain. His tone screams ‘this is as restrained as it is physically possible for me to be, so don’t push it.’

Lecter nods in immediate understanding, observing the titanic shift. “Dean,” he says as Dean strides toward the door.

Dean snaps back, rigid.

“The relationship between doctor and patient is more than a transaction; it is a mutual growth. Within the past few seconds I have dredged up sensations that have put you in distress and failed utterly to resolve your emotions. In fact I have driven you away. It appears that on every level I have failed as a therapist and as a doctor.” Lecter stands. “You still have half of a session left. If you insist upon leaving, would you like that half refunded?”

Dean’s tempted. He really is. More food to pig out on, maybe a pie, anything with astronomical levels of sugar that’ll make his stomach ache for days. He could buy a prostitute with the extra cash. Hell, he could buy a _male_ prostitute. Not that he would. A guy can dream, though. Maybe a guy with blue eyes. Messy brown hair. Wait, no, he’s just thinking about Cas again.

“Nah,” Dean says, and turns away to scratchily wipe his eye. “Nah,” he repeats, his voice clearer. “You keep it. It’s been--it’s been real shitty, I’m not gonna lie to ya, doc. But you tried, and you know?” Dean realises it as he says it. “Not a lot of people _try_ for me.”

Plus, ya know, the credit card is fake, so refunds are impossible.

Lecter nods as if he understands wholly--nods as if he cares. “May I give a final word of advice?” 

Dean just stands there. “Um. Fine.”

Lecter strides over, reaches out a hand for Dean to shake a second time.

It’s surprisingly warm and human. Lecter clasps his hand and holds on.

“All throughout life, we are offered God’s curses and, perhaps, His blessings. Some of us are open to receiving grievous wounds but closed to receiving the healing those wounds are due.”

Dean nods to show he follows, but he’s not sure where this is going. Lecter is still touching his hand, and the fucker uses moisturiser, so oh yeah, he’s _definitely_ gay. The touch is not romantic, not erotically charged, but it is earnest and _meant_ , so Dean allows it (fucker’s butt-ugly, but whatever).

“I do not believe a God ensures that men receive what they have earned. People will receive joys and support they did not beget through virtue of their actions.”

Dean resists the urge to say ‘get to the point’ and instead says, “Yeah. Buttload of billionaires with awesome shit they don’t deserve.” Lecter seems to sense what Dean almost said and almost-smiles again.

“In short, Dean,” Lecter releases his hand at last, “Humanity is complex. People obtain what they do not merit. Joy they do not deserve, _and pain._ You may have earned your wounds but that does not mean you deserve them. God is not just. Nor is the punishment He has given you.”

With those words, Lecter steps back. Dean finds himself through the doorway, then finds the door back into the office closed.

Old words match with new ones. _What’s the matter? You don’t think you deserve to be saved._

_You may have earned your wounds but that does not mean you deserve them. God is not just. Nor the punishment He has given you._

Dean heads out.

Phew.

It’s been a fuckin’ day.

  
  


ONE YEAR LATER.

“Hey, Dean, get this,” Sam calls from across the aisle at the Gas’N’Sip, holding up a newspaper. “Remember when we drove to Baltimore to investigate that string of Chesapeake Ripper murders?”

Dean thinks back. Baltimore. Crappy Maryland city. Baby got a flat tire. The string of murders Dean thought had to be demonic. Investigation cockblocked by real FBI. “What about it?” he asks.

“They caught the killer,” Sam says, eyes scanning down the newspaper with frankly absurd speed. “Or… he turned himself in, I guess. Jack Crawford and Will Graham get the credit for the arrest--Graham, that’s the guy in mismatched socks you were checking out.”

“Dude,” says Dean, shaking his head in utter bafflement, “How the fuck do you even remember these things?”

Sam shrugs. “Someone has to give their brother shit about his blatantly obvious crushes. Younger sib prerogative.”

Dean rolls his eyes, an older sib prerogative. “Well,” he says, angling over so he can read the headline too, “Who’s the perp?”

“Oh, man. You’re not gonna believe this. His name literally rhymes with Cannibal. Check it out.”

Dean reads the words printed firmly into the limp grey paper. _Hannibal Lecter, M.D._

“Motherfucker,” he says. “I came out to him once.”

**Author's Note:**

> well. thats something ive written. easily one of the things ive written. i wrote it while listening to barbie music so


End file.
